General Information

Louisiana State University, founded in 1860, has an enrollment of approximately 30,000 students (more than 5,000 graduate students) and some 1,300 faculty members. It is classified as a Research University I by the Carnegie Foundation. With more than 250 buildings, the 2,000-acre campus is bordered on the north by shopping streets, on the east and south by University Lake and residential areas, and on the west by the Mississippi River. Near Lockett Hall, which houses the Department of Mathematics, there are the LSU Campus Mounds. These are ancient earthworks made by Native Americans thousands of years ago. The 2.7-million volume LSU Library currently subscribes to about 300 mathematics journals. Students often gather informally in the quadrangle in front of the Library.

The campus offers several locations with public-access computers, including many residence halls, the Student Union, and the LSU Library. Wireless internet access is available throughout campus. Lockett Hall has three labs used for instruction in selected courses and research: one used primarily in sophomore-level mathematics courses, one used by senior-level and graduate classes, and one used mainly in support of the Mathematics Consultation Clinic, in which students and faculty assist local businesses and industry with mathematical problems. Lockett Hall offers both wired and wireless Internet access, including a gigabit connection to the main campus hub and further to Internet2. In 2002 LSU has acquired a supercomputer in the form of a Beowulf cluster of 512 custom-made machines connected through a special 2-gigabit-per-second network. The cluster has the total of 1024 processors, one terabyte of RAM, and the capability of performing over two trillion operations per second. At the time of its installation in August 2002, it was the eleventh fastest computer in the world, and the second fastest in the world's academic institutions. The Mathematics Department has a smaller version of the LSU supercomputer, with 32 processors and 32 gigabytes of RAM. The departmental cluster is used for scientific computation by the members of the Mathematics of Materials Science research group.

Students will find excellent facilities for theater and concert activities. Many University productions, guest artists, road shows, and popular entertainers are booked each year. The city of Baton Rouge supports a symphony in its modern riverside theater complex known as the Centroplex. The university supports its symphony and an opera series on campus. In addition, the many night locales offer a wide variety of bands and vocalists, and the University sponsors a film series. The sports facilities for intercollegiate competition and campus recreation at LSU compare favorably with those at any major university. There is an extensive intramural program offering over 35 different sports. A large recreational sports center on campus was completed in 1992. The city of Baton Rouge, capital of the State of Louisiana, has a metropolitan area population of more than 500,000. The city is home of the fifth largest port in the United States. Baton Rouge has many fine restaurants, while for regal entertainment and world-famous cuisine, New Orleans is only an hour and a half away via Interstate 10. Houston is five hours west of Baton Rouge. The Louisiana countryside provides many opportunities for bicycling, picnicking, and canoeing. Well-preserved plantation homes offer interesting sightseeing. There are wildlife sanctuaries, horseracing tracks, hunting, and fishing. Baton Rouge is located on the edge of Cajun Louisiana, where French is still spoken and cooking is a fine art practiced in many restaurants great and small.

The weather is semi-tropical. Midsummer daily maximums are generally around 92 degrees, the humidity is high, and afternoon showers can be expected. On the other hand, winter weather usually lasts no more than a month, with daily minimums in the forties and occasional overnight freezes. Fall and spring weather last for extended periods, bringing out joggers in droves. Annual average rainfall is a moderate 54 inches. Drinking water comes from deep artesian wells and is very pure.

LSU has nineteen residence halls, 184 apartments for single students in East Campus Apartments, and 578 apartments for married students in the Nicholson and Edward Gay Apartments. Nine of the halls have computer labs and most halls and apartments have Ethernet data connections available by subscription in each room. There is a Residential College to create a living-learning environment. For more information contact Residential Life.